While it's true this debate becomes a little less relevant as you increase
in level, as a server ages, as items become over harvested, and more and
more friends bring other friends into the game, it does still exist.While it's true this debate becomes a little less relevant as you increase
in level, as a server ages, as items become over harvested, and more and
more friends bring other friends into the game, it does still exist.
As I near the current maximum level, I can relate to this issue over an entire lifespan of a Dark Elf Cleric. All my life having to compete with the good clerics, and often Shaman and Druids.
I have also felt this unfairness / injustice from the view of a Troll Warrior, and Dark Elf Warrior. In comparison my approximate remaining 9-ish lives were spent as good races.
As dark races our mobility is limited. I really have no problem with this as there are always ways around (most easily attained from 29 th on, druidic teleport). Here I really don't have a lot of issues, however let's compare to the good races and see what this really means.
Long ago, before the Guise of the Deciever existed, goods feared the dark lands (I so name So Ro, Innothule Swamp, Grobb, Feerrott, Oggok and Rathe Mts the "dark lands"). Evil pretty much had free reign here, and you never saw a good below 25 th in these lands. When you did see a good they were running to the dungeon screaming "Bouncer to Cazac" or "Toll Captain to Guk".
This was balanced on the evil side as evil could not go to Erudis (the entire isle) or Faydwer (the entire isle) accept by teleport.
Players are changing this balance. More and more lows / newbies have high level characters of their own, high level friends who can help them get places, or buy things for them that would otherwise be difficult. So mobility has become somewhat of a moot point.
But what about those quests? Currently there are few, if any, quests that the dark races can do. I'm not sure about Troll or Ogre, but a lot of my quests involve places that I either can not get to (aside from druid tp) or are KOS at. That's if I can even get to the npc to initiate the quest to begin with.
Let's take a simple example; the Screaming Mace. I hear this is a fairly simple quest to do, and can be done somewhere between 12 th and 15 th level. When I was a youth I knew of noone who could take me to Faydwer. Nor did I have a viable alternative. I had to wait till 17 th level to upgrade from my free summoned hammer. At this time the server was still young as well, items had not filtered down, thus items that were from farther off were too costly for me to afford.
This moves the issue from one of a question of "where can you go, how far do you have to go to get to the bank", to one of "what quests can you do and which items are easily attained".
I soloed nearly all my life, only entering dungeons at 40 (due to previous bad life experience with dungeons), and as a young cleric I thus had little plat, and no items to offer for trade.
Where can an evil race go that good can't? The answer is nowhere. Especially now that the Deciever is available (can you tell I'm going to explode heavily on this soon?)
Simple fact, as a Dark Elf Cleric there is currently maybe 1 item I can use that goods cant. That out of the 12 quests I have in temple, only 3 are really very feasible, and only 1 easily accomplished with no personal threat. (Which if Kith is still changed, is now under personal threat).
This moves us to items and availability. Items are where your biggest struggle and imbalance comes in. From my guess, good outweighs evil at the rate of about 25 to 1 (on my server, if not more). I am currently hunting in Lower Guk, the highest population of fake DEs there are. In a typical group I will be the only true DE in the group, yet they will all appear as DE. In any other zone you pass through do the / look around you will probably find I'm right.
What does this mean? This means that any item will be in extreme competition. Lets suppose item x can be used by Shaman, Druid and Cleric. Out of 100 people this means that the evil races will be 4 of those people. What are the odds those 4 will have the same resources as the other 96? Next to none.
Another example, Dark Reaver versus Ghoul Bane. Though GB is a much more powerful item, it's next to impossible to sell a Dark Reaver, while GB would sell instantly. Why? It's Shadow Knight only, class specific, so is Ghoul Bane, but again this comes to competition vs population. The Paladins, by my previous estimate, outweigh Shadow Knights by 25 to 1. Thus you could sell 25 GBs before you sell 1 DR. In fact before I gave one to a friend at half cost I sat at a bazaar trying to trade one. Mine was one of 3 up for sale that week, I sat for 4 hours. None of the 3 were sold.
Which brings me to that damn mask.
To sum so far; we now have, limited mobility / quests against us. We have competition for items at probably a ratio of 25 to 1, maybe cut that down to 10-15 to 1 if you go class specific. There are basically no items that are race specific to a single race.
You strap that mask on a good and what happens? You already have all the benefits of being good, now you have all the benefits of being evil, and yet none of the disadvantages of either. Your class or racial mobility disadvantage has been erased. Your vision limitations have been erased.
Hello? What in Innoruuks name is this about? Where is the balance? Where is the Guise of Goodness? (Reverse of Guise of the Deciever).
In every game I have ever played, every movie I have ever seen, every book I have ever read, evil has a balance point.
Typically it attains power more quickly, or has items of indescribable power to balance that they are fewer in number, or items that give power in some way but remove it in another. Sure, they always wind up loosing in the end, but it's usually a fair fight. But here is the big point; in EQ there is no end. EverQuest is not the real world, why must it reflect it?
Not only is/was evil beaten down and severely, if not impossibly, handicapped before, but now they put in this damn mask to make them more so and basically remove any point at all to being of an evil race?
I think Verant needs to wise up. Make a lot more items only usable by evil races only. If not I can see the dark races dying out very quickly.
My hopes, the expansion will change things, bring the balance back to a somewhat neutral position. Give that kid who get's the game for christmas a reason to be evil over good.
Summary / Solution / Truth
As it stands, good highly outweighs evil. If something isn't done quick, I see evil dying out. Hopefully the expansion will prevent this (I have heard it will to an extent).
Life in Norrath is following a path. Why should any one path be so much more impossibly difficult than any other?
There currently is little to no point in choosing an evil race over a good one, more so for those of us who choose a class which can be a good or evil race. Mobility is limited, items aren't as readily available, quests are harder if not impossible to do, and you are outnumbered by a guess of 25 to 1 when competing for any item.
The only saving grace for being truly of a dark race? The Definition of Evil.